Me: Okay, we’re going to play a game. I write “game” on the board. What does game mean?

Adorable 7th grade boy: GAME OVER!

Me: Aha! Yes! “Game Over.” What does that mean?

Everybody: Fin del juego! Juego! Juego!

Me. Yeah. Now, this game is called “four corners” Four…

Everybody: Cuatro!

Me: Corners….

Adorable 7th grade boy: Corner Kick!

Me: Yes! “Corner Kick!” So “corner” is…..

Everybody: Esquina!  Esquina!

English is everywhere here. People play “beisbol” and “volibol,” we drink “sun tea” (pronounced soontee).

(teacher, what is “sol” in English? Sun. Sun, like suntea? Yes.)

Sometimes I don’t know if people realize that a lot of the things in their surroundings are in English. If I can just get them to look around and make connections, my job is a lot easier.

7:00 AM, walk to school (school is meant to start at 6:30 but…. you know)

8:00 AM First Class of the day, working on group projects

9:00 AM Second Class of the day, working on reading comprehension tests.

10:00 AM Recess!

11:00 AM Last class of the day

12:00 AM Corriente! We got out of class early today so, lunch!

1:00 PM, hang out in a mall, plan English Club, listen to music

2:00 & 3:00 PM English Club! Forgot to take pictures, but this is what it’s like, sort of.

4:00 PM, Walk home from school.

5:00 PM, internet cafe!!

6:00 PM shopping!

7:00 PM, go hang out in the center with a friend

The rest of the night: EMBROIDER!

You may remember this shirt as appearing in several previous blog posts as I slowly drafted and handsewed my way through it.

Well, it’s done.

And what to do with such a shirt when it’s done? Wear it to a PCV birthday party and let them all marvel at how much free time I have.  While all of you were watching netflix I was: CREATING!

ahem. I could really go for having internet. I might look into getting it next month or maybe never still.

The shirt’s first appearance on the blog appears to be at the end of January. So I’ve been working on it for…more than three months. Ahem.

http://abbyinthebox.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/pages-from-my-notebook/

http://abbyinthebox.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/making/

http://abbyinthebox.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/this-mornings-work/

http://abbyinthebox.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/this-week-in-clothes-that-are-too-hot-to-wear-here/

What is this going to be? There is a kind of typical man’s shirt here on the coast called a guayabera. It’s often made of linen, and often white. It features tone on tone embroidery on sort of what would be the princess line seams if men had boobs. I’m incredibly jealous of my menfriends guayaberas, so I’m going to make a lady version. This is the plan. And I’m going to embroidery it with a pattern reminiscent of the wrought iron bars that are ubiquitous here.

I have some sketches. I’ll upload them later.

Project 2: My mom sent me this dress instead of jelly beans.

Let me explain. I don’t know how I convinced myself that my mom’s easter package was going to be absolutely full of jelly beans, but I was sure of it. I told all my friends that jelly beans were on their way and after waiting weeks and weeks to be able to get the package from the volunteer who picked it up for me, I opened the package to give him his share of the jelly beans and, well, My mom sent me this dress instead of jelly beans.

Isn’t it cool?

It’s about a foot too long. And the pocket is about where my knees are. And also it’s like, meltingly hot here. So, I’m going to change things up a little. The plan: flutter sleeves.

1. School – School continues to be school. I’m working way too many hours this semester (25 hours at the school when we’re only supposed to be doing like 16). I’m not entirely sure how that happened, but it’s too late to back out now. Not going to happen next semester

not at my school, much to clean looking, but look at my PC polo and matching sneaks! Giving a presentation, like a boss.

. And speaking of next semester and late in the semester:

Next week is normal

The week after is a four day week

The week after is normal

The week after is test week, so I have four hour days instead of six hour days

The week after is a four day week, and a test week

The week  after is a four day week, and review (I might not have to go)

The week after is … well I have no idea what that week is supposed to be but I think English day is going down that Monday and also please see point 6 for more on that week

AND THEN there is one week of teachers only

And then I am free.

Let me summarize: We are 8 weeks away from freedom. Of these weeks, 3 are four day weeks, and I might not have to go to 2 of them, and two are test weeks, o sea, I have like… 23 days of this semester left, give or take?

2. English Club – middle school English club is going surprisingly well. Next week, I’m going to try to do some reader’s theater with them, we’ll see how that goes, but I think it could be really fun. I’ll keep y’all posted and try to film maybe.

Unfortunately everyone stopped coming to high school English club, so I had to cancel it for the rest of the semester. I don’t mind having English club, in fact, I rather like English club. BUT, I rather dislike coming back to the school on a Friday afternoon and having nobody show up. Or two people show up. Not worth it. so maybe we’ll try again next semester.

Concert in a church from a month back. Oboe Concerto!

3. orchestra

Orchestra is going really well! This session we’re playing stuff by a Colombian Composer, Adolfo Mejia. It’s pretty interesting to play something that doesn’t hardly ever get played. Downsides include: the scores aren’t perfect and we keep having to stop rehearsal to correct peoples parts. (What note are you playing there? F, Maestro. Oooooh… that should be F#, pencil that in).

Going to rehearsal three times a week is basically the highlight of my week, although it does make for some long days.

And, I’m playing English Horn again for the first time in a long time. <3<3<3

Here’s part of one piece that we are going to play, played by some other orchestra, if you want to take a listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D1kDGyN49A

Happy Birthday last year!

4. Birthday

Bought myself an MP3 player that actually works as an early birthday present. It makes me happy!! So I listen to it all the time at home now. Sometimes I am an antisocial cat.

Planned Birthday celebrations include: celebrating Emily’s birthday next weekend, which is a long weekend, going back to BAQ the next weekend, so more celebration. And then Bogota in early June and continued celebration. I think cake and ice cream will probably be involved.

5. trip planning

So, as mentioned, we hope to go to Bogota in early June for a girls getaway. I also hope to go to Mompox in the near future, because it looks beautiful and it’s less of a place people go all the time. There’s also a possibility that I will go to Bogota again in Mid-June, although we may go somewhere else in the interior because…..

6. My parents are going to come visit me!!!

This will be the first time that my parents have ever come to visit me abroad, so I’m pretty excited. I’m trying not to count my chickens before they hatch, but it seems like it probably will happen, and we’re making plans. Hurrah!

I’m really looking forward to showing my parents my life here, and how happy I am, and all my friends and zumba in the plaza and exotic fruits and the most delicious places to eat on a budget, and Colombia through my eyes!

Kind of an old picture. But remember long sleeves? Those were the days…

1. ATMs that will give you twenties and not fifties. Nothing worse than gettng out 60 mil and getting a fifty and a ten.

1. Where all the potholes are in the road on my way to and from school and to and from rehearsal.

1. Which places have bathrooms
2. Which places have free public bathrooms
3. Which free public bathrooms have toilet paper

This is one of my vocabulary lists from when I first moved in with my very first host family. Please note things like “Zanahoria” (carrot) on the list, and my terrible misspelling and wrong definition of juiciosa.

The view from the Peace Corps office.

From swearing in. I think it was actually a leaf.

The first time I walked into my school for site visits.

So I was cleaning my room a little bit today (doesn’t happen too often, don’t worry) and I ran across my old notebook from my first few months in Colombia. I’ve come a long way! Enjoy!

Bellas Artes. Once upon a time, I just thought it looked cool. Now I’m there three times a week. Sigh.

I don’t always take the time to block things, but I got free time and running water, so why not?

Well, I finished knitting my sweater. All that remains is to weave in the loose ends. Which is the worst part of the whole knitting process.

I’m also getting close to being done with my shirt that I’m sewing. Having hand-bound a whole bunch of button holes, all that remains is to hem it, and to attach the woven bands that will go around the bottom of the sleeves, and make two more buttonholes on the sleeves and attach two more buttons.

It’s way too hot to try and wear this long enough to take a decent picture.

And then I can start cutting out another one. Did I tell you guys that I found something super cool at the bookstore that I can’t wait to use? A whole magazine full of patterns for button down shirts and other business-y things!

But first I‘ve got to finish this project.

Collar / I finally found interfacing in Cartagena!

We showed up at the first church in the middle of a catechism class and ended up giving a miniconcert to the kids just before they left. That was pretty awesome. One our percussionists introduced all the instruments so maybe the kids also learned something new? She’d say something like “one of the families of musical instruments is the string family. Can you guess what the littlest one is called?” (hint: the answer is violin) “A FLUTE! A FLUTE!” When in doubt, the right answer is flute. Which was ironic as we actually didn’t have any flute players there that day.